It’s here–the tenth installment of Entropy’s “Month in Books” feature! Every month we highlight small presses and their newest releases. If you are a small press and have something on the way, let us know if you’d like the books to be represented (jenny@entropymag.org). There’s so much good stuff this Halloween, it’s a little scary (in a really satisfying way). Stay chill, ya tricksters. Treat yourself to one of these sweet, sweet books.
Ahsahta Press
Literature for Nonhumans by Gabriel Gudding
144 pages – Ahsahta Press/SPD
“Just as Sinclair exposed humanity’s lack of humanity in The Jungle over a hundred years ago, Gudding creates, in Literature for Nonhumans, a vivid lyric investigation of our society’s current slide from an age of destruction into a new age of extinctions. In this multidisciplinary & interdisciplinary text, Gudding notches every inch between lament and manifesto and intersects every topic from here (piglets, zombies, Illinois) to heaven where, upon arrival, we find ‘Christ as an anal robot-king we’ve set narratively running at the edge of history to serve as a reparator by vicarious redemption.’ Prepare to be horrified, crackled, poem-ed. Prepare to be schooled.” —Amy King
Big Lucks Books
Fat Daisies by Carrie Murphy
82 pages – Big Lucks
Black Lawrence Press
Dress Made of Mice by Sarah Messer
60 pages – BLP/SPD
The Bloody Planet by Callista Buchen
34 pages – BLP/SPD
The Soul Hunters by Christopher Torockio
BLP
Black Ocean
Static and Snow by Brian Henry
104 pages – Black Ocean
Canarium Books
Consolation and Mirth by Ish Klein
104 pages – Canarium/SPD
City Lights Publishers
Pedro Pietri: Selected Poetry by Pedro Pietri
144 pages – City Lights/SPD
Coach House Books
The Xenotext: Book I by Christian Bök
160 pages – Coach House/Amazon
Mission Creep by Joshua Trotter
104 pages – Coach House/Amazon
Guano by Louis Carmain, translated by Rhonda Mullins
144 pages – Coach House/Amazon
Country Club by Andy McGuire
72 pages – Coach House/Amazon
Ardour by Nicole Brossard, translated by Angela Carr
88 pages – Coach House/Amazon
The Murder of Halland by Pia Juul, translated by Martin Aitkin
152 pages – Coach House/Amazon
Pillow by Andrew Battershill
240 pages – Coach House/Amazon
Pillow loves animals. Especially giraffes. That’s why he chooses the zoo for the drug drop-offs he does as a low-level enforcer for the mob. Which happens to be run by André Breton and the Surrealists, like Gwynn Apollinaire, Louise Aragon and Georges Bataille. A gentle soul, Pillow doesn’t love his life of crime. But he isn’t cut out for much else, what with all the punches to the head he took as a professional boxer. And now that he’s accidentally but sort of happily knocked up his neighbour, Emily, he wants to get out and go straight. So when an antique-coin heist goes awry, Pillow sees his chance to make one last big score. But it’s hard to outwit a Surrealist, especially when you can’t always think so clearly. He soon finds himself kneedeep in murder and morphine, kidnapping a pseudo-priest and doing some fancy footwork around a pair of corrupt cops. With a dark wink of the teeth and a wet fish to the heart, Pillow is literary crime fiction that punches above its weight. –from the Coach House website
Coffee House Press
Upright Beasts by Lincoln Michel
224 pages – Coffee House/Amazon
Sentences and Rain by Elaine Equi
100 pages – Coffee House/Amazon
Copilot Press
Counter-Archive to the Narco-City by Adriana Corral, Alma Leiva, et al.
92 pages – Copilot/Amazon
Curbside Splendor
Juventud by Vanessa Blakeslee
340 pages – Curbside Splendor/Amazon
Dalkey Archive
A Good Family by Seo Hajin, translated by Ally Hwang & Amy Smith
350 pages – Dalkey Archive/Amazon
God Has No Grandchildren by Kim Gyeong-uk, translated by Sunok Kang
256 pages – Dalkey Archive/Amazon
The Private Lives of Plants by Lee Seung-U, translated by Inrae You Vinciguerra & Louis Vinciguerra
133 pages – Dalkey Archive/Amazon
Rina by Kang Young-sook, translated by Kim Boram
215 pages – Dalkey Archive/Amazon
Best European Fiction 2016 edited by Nathaniel Davis
332 pages – Dalkey Archive/Amazon
Fata Morgana by Svetislav Basara, translated by Randall A. Major
144 pages – Dalkey Archive/Amazon
Collected Stories by John Barth
800 pages – Dalkey Archive/Amazon
Son of Man by Yi Mun-yol, translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé
208 pages – Dalkey Archive/Amazon
One of the greatest living Korean writers here details the quest of a young seminary student seeking transcendence, running through many Western and East Asian theologies in the process. Deciding that Jesus was not truly “the son of man,” the student sets out to create his own alternative to Christ, and winds up dead. Soon, the detective called in to solve the killing winds up with more than a simple murder on his hands, as this metaphysical mystery advances to its unforgettable climax. –from the Dalkey Archive website
Deep Vellum Publishing
Home by Leila S. Chudori, translated by John H. McGlynn
500 pages – Deep Vellum/Amazon
Dorothy, a publishing project
The Weight of Things by Marianne Fritz, translated by Adrian Nathan West
144 pages – Dorothy/SPD
Vertigo by Joanna Walsh
120 pages – Dorothy/SPD
“Reading Vertigo has opened even wider my conceptions of what’s possible in fiction—how a book can be like a series of photographs, like cinema. These stories appear as much as they engage with narrative, saturated with a calm yet rich color. I’ve not read anything like it and feel it is quietly subverting the hell out of the form.” –Amina Cain
Dzanc Books
We Five by Mark Dunn
380 pages – Dzanc/Amazon
Featherproof Books
Erratic Fire, Erratic Passion by Jeff Parker
120 pages – Featherproof/Amazon
Fitzcarraldo
Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett
184 pages – Fitzcarraldo/Amazon
Gauss PDF
Burning Questions by Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal
Gauss PDF
Secularis Musica Ficta Operibus Libro VII (Quia Chorum et Adiutrux Organum, Clavicymbalum) by Kieran Consort
Guass PDF
UND3RGR0UND L0V3R5: A Comedy-Ballet without Dance or Music by Sofia Le Fraga
Gauss PDF
Whereis Mineral: Selected Adventures in MOO by Chris Funkhouser
Gauss PDF
Grumpy Cat 2 Reads Sanditon Chapter 2 by Amelia Dale
Gauss PDF
Gold Line Press/Ricochet Editions
Dear Girl: A Reckoning by drea brown
48 pages – Gold Line/Ricochet
Let the Rivers Clap Their Hands by Katherine Zlabek
58 pages – Gold Line/Ricochet
Fugue Meadow by Keith Jones
29 pages – Gold Line/Ricochet
The White Swallow by Anna Kovatcheva
52 pages – Gold Line/Ricochet
“The White Swallow has so many things going for it — starkly memorable imagery, strangeness that feels natural to the story, the feeling that the story itself grew up from the earth like a tree, and an ending that defies moralization. It seems instead to reflect the same unpredictable and mysterious quality of the world that also lets birds go into girls and healing to occur and, for inside all that, love to blossom.” —Aimee Bender
Greying Ghost Press
Compost by Dan Chelotti
Chapbook – Greying Ghost
Graywolf Press
Four-Legged Girl by Diane Seuss
88 pages – Graywolf/Amazon
Changing the Subject: Art and Attention in the Internet Age by Sven Birkerts
272 pages – Graywolf/Amazon
Rails Under My Back by Jeffrey Renard Allen
584 pages – Graywolf/Amazon
H_NGM_N
Eclogues by Graeme Bezanson
Chapbook – H_NGM_N
Hobart
Les Figues
TrenchArt Monographs: hurry up please its time edited by Teresa Carmody and Vanessa Place
377 pages – Les Figues/SPD
From 2005–2013, the TrenchArt book series was the cornerstone of Les Figues Press. The series took its name from “trench art”—artistic creations produced by soldiers made in wartime using whatever material was at hand, from shell casings to scrap metal to bone. It is art born of conflict and forced community: here we are, together in the trenches. Each year, the Press published four TrenchArt titles. Accompanying and preceding the release of each annual set was one hand-bound collection of aesthetic essays distributed exclusively to Les Figues members. TrenchArt Monographs: hurry up please its time collects these essays and brings them, for the first time, to a wider readership. –from the Les Figues website
Letter Machine
Evening Oracle by Brandon Shimoda
148 pages – Letter Machine/SPD
Magic Helicopter Press
Only Love Can Bring You Peace by Simon Joyner
300 pages – Magic Helicopter/SPD
Melville House
Metatron
Pony Castle by Sofia Banzhaf
48 pages – Metatron
New Directions
The Trace by Forrest Gander
240 pages – New Directions/Amazon
The King by Kader Abdolah, translated by Nancy Forest-Flier
352 pages – New Directions/Amazon
Mr. Kafka and Other Tales from the Time of the Cult by Bohumil Hrabal, translated by Paul Wilson
160 pages – New Directions/Amazon
Noemi Press
Deep City by Megan Kaminski
75 pages – Noemi/SPD
The Locust Diagrams by Nathan Parker
86 pages – Noemi/SPD
Open Letter Books
Rochester Knockings: A Novel of the Fox Sisters by Hubert Haddad, translated by Jennifer Grotz
309 pages – Open Letter/Amazon
The Fox Sisters grew up outside of Rochester, NY, in a house with a reputation for being haunted, due to a series of strange “knockings” that plagued its inhabitants. Fed up with the sounds, the youngest of the sisters (aged twelve) challenged their ghost and ended up communicating with a spirit who had been murdered in the house and buried in the cellar. The Fox Sisters became instantly famous for talking to the dead, launching the Spiritualist Movement. After taking Rochester by storm, they moved to New York where they were the most famous mediums of the time, performing séances for hundreds of people—until it all fell apart. Yet, even today, the Fox Sisters are still considered to be the founders of one of the most popular religious movements in recent centuries. Rich in historical detail, Rochester Knockings novelizes the rise and fall of these most infamous of mediums, and sheds a unique light on the impressionability and fragility of nineteenth-century America. –from the Open Letter Books website
OR Books
Killer Care: How Medical Error Became America’s Third Largest Cause of Death, and What Can Be Done About It by James B. Lieber
286 pages – OR Books
Language of War, Language of Peace: Palestine, Israel, and the Search for Justice by Raja Shehadeh
162 pages – OR Books
The Gulf: High Culture/Hard Labor edited by Andrew Ross
360 pages – OR Books
The Strangest by Michael J. Seidlinger
200 pages – OR Books
Other Press
Katherine Carlyle by Rupert Thomson
288 pages – Other Press/Amazon
Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell by Deborah Soloman
448 pages – Other Press/Amazon
Emblems of the Passing World by Adam Kirsch
128 pages – Other Press/Amazon
A Mighty Purpose: How Jim Grant Sold the World on Saving Its Children by Adam Fifield
368 pages – Other Press/Amazon
Nicholas Kristof hailed Jim Grant as a man who “probably saved more lives than were destroyed by Hitler, Mao, and Stalin combined.” Nominated by President Jimmy Carter to head UNICEF, Grant ran the United Nations agency from 1980 to 1995 and became the most powerful advocate for children the world has ever seen. To ensure that even children trapped by war received health care and immunizations, he brokered humanitarian ceasefires by exploiting the political self-interests of presidents and warlords alike. Grant at first met fierce resistance at the United Nations and in his own organization, and some thought his ideas were crazy and dangerous. But as he kept toppling obstacle after obstacle, he eventually won over even his most stubborn detractors. Grant spearheaded a historic surge in worldwide childhood immunization rates and launched a movement that profoundly altered the face of global health and international development. –from the Other Press website
Platypus Press
Wishing for Birds by Elisabeth Hewer
84 pages – Platypus Press/Amazon
Poor Claudia
The Fundaments by Greg Purcell
100 pages – Poor Claudia/Amazon
Queen’s Ferry Press
The Violence by Rob McClure Smith
Queen’s Ferry Press
The Best Small Fictions 2015 edited by Robert Olen Butler and Tara L. Masih
160 pages – Queen’s Ferry Press/Amazon
It takes many small things to make something big. Fifty-five acclaimed and emerging writers—including Emma Bolden, Ron Carlson, Kelly Cherry, Stuart Dybek, Blake Kimzey, Roland Leach, Bobbie Ann Mason, Diane Williams, and Hiromi Kawakami—have made the debut of The Best Small Fictions 2015 something significant, something worthwhile, and something necessary. Featuring spotlights on Pleiades journal and Michael Martone, this international volume—with Pulitzer Prize–winning author Robert Olen Butler serving as guest editor and award-winning editor Tara L. Masih as series editor—is a celebration of the diversity and quality captured in fiction forms fewer than 1,000 words. –from the Queen’s Ferry Press website
Restless Books
Don Quixote: 400th Anniversary Edition by Miguel de Cervantes, translated by John Ormsby
Restless Books
Sarabande Books
Smote by James Kimbrell
80 pages – Sarabande/Amazon
Semiotext(e)
And by Franco “Bifo” Berardi
336 pages – Semiotext(e)/Amazon
The Irresponsible Magician: Essays and Fictions by Rebekah Rutkoff
104 pages – Semiotext(e)/Amazon
Sharp, acerbic, and often humorous, Rebekah Rutkoff’s writings about contemporary culture reflect the present in ways reminiscent of Renata Adler’s and Joan Didion’s writings about urban life in the late twentieth century. Moving freely between fact and fiction, utilizing imaginary interviews, accidental stories, and critical essays, The Irresponsible Magician approaches psychoanalysis and celebrity on a first-name basis. Writing about cultural figures as diverse as Oprah Winfrey, Michel Auder, the Kennedy women, William Eggleston, Gregory Markopulos, and Hilda Doolittle, Rutkoff interprets protagonists as if they were figures in a dream. Navigating a world of painting, cable television, video art, avant-garde film, memories, or Rutkoff’s own photographs, these texts read images like tea leaves, opening up a space in which shadows speak more eloquently than symbols or signs. –from the Semiotext(e) website
Siglio Press
Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matter Worse) by John Cage, co-edited by Joe Biel and Richard Kraft
176 pages – Siglio
“Composed over the course of sixteen years, John Cage’s Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse) is one of his most prescient and personal works. A repository of observations, anecdotes, proclivities, obsessions, jokes and koan-like stories, Diary registers Cage’s assessment of the times in which he lived as well as his often uncanny portents about the world we live in now. With a great sense of play as well as purpose, Cage traverses vast territory, from the domestic minutiae of everyday life to ideas about how to feed the world. Originally typed on an IBM Selectric, Cage used chance operations to determine not only the word count and the application of various typefaces but also the number of letters per line, the patterns of indentation, and—in the case of Part Three published as a Great Bear Pamphlet by Something Else Press—color. The unusual visual variances on the page become almost musical as language takes on a physical and aural presence.” –from the Siglio Press website
Sundress Publications
The One Where I Ruin Your Childhood by Daniel Crocker
Chapbook – Sundress
Sunnyoutside
Scattered Trees Grow in Some Tundra by Cheryl Quimba
28 pages – Sunnyoutside
Tin House Books
The New and Improved Romie Futch by Julia Eliott
416 pages – Tin House/Amazon
tNY.Press
Reliant by S. Kay
146 pages – tNy.Press/Amazon
Selfies, sexbots, and drones collide in these interwoven nanofictions about a society before, during, and after its collapse. With dazzling humor and insight, debut author S. Kay reveals a future that looks disconcertingly like the present. Beautifully illustrated by Thoka Maer, Reliant is a bold examination of society’s unrequited love for technology. –from the tNY.Press website
Tupelo Press
The Good Dark by Annie Guthrie
70 pages – Tupelo/SPD
The Book of Stones and Angels by Harold Schweizer
76 pages – Tupelo/Amazon
Two Lines Press
The Sleep of the Righteous by Wolfgang Hilbig
176 pages – Two Lines Press/Amazon
Ugly Duckling Presse
Courier’s Text of the United States of America by Woody Leslie
Web Book – Ugly Duckling Presse
Distance Decay by Cathy Eisenhower
128 pages – Ugly Duckling Presse/SPD
Wakefield Press
Murder Most Serene by Gabrielle Wittkop, translated by Louise Rogers Lalaurie
116 pages – Wakefield Press/Amazon
Exemplary Departures by Gabrielle Wittkop, translated by Annette David
168 pages – Wakefield Press/Amazon
Exemplary Departures consists of five exquisitely wrought novellas depicting five “exemplary” deaths in various exotic locations around the globe: a gentleman spy disappears with his secrets into the Malaysian jungle; a young woman agonizes atop a ruined castle overlooking the Rhine; a writer succumbs to alcoholism in the streets of Baltimore; a salesman expires as a vagabond in the sewers of New York; and hermaphroditic twins are assassinated in a stagecoach. Drawing from the remnants of real-life anecdotes—from Edgar Allan Poe’s final days to the agonizing tale of Idilia Dubb—these stories are imagined descents into the death’s supreme indifference. A true modern inheritor of the legacy of the French Decadent writers, Wittkop spins these tales with her trademark macabre elegance and chilling humor, maneuvering in an uncertain space between dark Romanticism, Gothic Expressionism, and Sadistic cruelty. “Death is life’s most important moment” Wittkop had claimed; Exemplary Departures offers five particularly important moments for the English reader’s dubious delectation. –from the Wakefield Press website
Wave Books
Of Entirety Say the Sentence by Ernst Meister, translated by Graham Foust and Samuel Frederick
192 pages – Wave Books/SPD
Supplication: Selected Poems by John Wieners, by John Wieners
216 pages – Wave Books/SPD
